A Situation Emerges in Florence, as TV Brings an Altered Reality

'Jersey Shore' Cast Finds Culture Clash in Italy; Will 'Snooki' Be Swept Up Like Stendhal?

By

Stacy Meichtry

June 1, 2011

FLORENCE, Italy—The cast of "Jersey Shore" relocated to this Tuscan citadel expecting to bask in their Italian heritage and soak up the country's legendary hospitality.

What they're getting is a very cold shoulder.

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While in Italy, Jersey Shore's 'Snooki' was involved in an accident Monday.
Kika Press/Pacific Coast News

Since Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi, Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino and other cast members of MTV's "Jersey Shore" reality-TV show set foot inside the cradle of the Italian Renaissance last month, the cast's vans have been met with fines. On Monday, there was another one, after a van—which Italian police say was driven by Ms. Polizzi—crashed into a police car.

One of the town's chic eateries has posted a "No Grazie, Jersey Shore" sign outside its door, instructing cast members to stay away. The cultural superintendent has barred the entire cast from being filmed in the city's hallowed museums.

For season four, Snooki, The Situation and the rest of the Guidos and Guidettes from 'The Jersey Shore' are showing off their unique brand of Italian-American culture in Florence, cradle of the Italian Renaissance. The locals are not amused.

Matteo Renzi, the town's 36-year-old mayor, issued his own Jersey Shore code of conduct: "The cast will not be filmed in bars and clubs that serve alcohol. The cast will not be filmed drinking in public," the code states.

"If you want to try to make Florence seem like a party town, you better know it isn't so," said Mr. Renzi recently, leaning back into a throne-like chair inside the Palazzo Vecchio, once the seat of the de' Medici dynasty.

Florence, Mr. Renzi said, has a long history of facing down outsize personalities and "won't be scared by Mike, 'The Situation.'"

The clash of cultures is rooted in opposing views of what it means to be "Italian." Florence—the land of Michelangelo, Dante and Gucci—has always regarded itself as an emblem of Italian elegance and courtly etiquette. Visitors, like the British ladies in E.M. Forster's "A Room with a View," are expected to tour the city in a state of awe, remaining polite and upright.

The Jersey Shore brand of being Italian involves more braggadocio. Revealing clothing, occasional impromptu urination, public displays of drunkenness and casual romance are the hallmarks of the "Guido" and "Guidette," as cast members proudly call themselves on the show—even though others consider the terms derogatory.

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Two cast members are drawn by a local artist.
MAXA /Landov

With the U.S. economy looking less dominant, Florentine officials have been looking for ways to "reposition" Florence to draw wealthy visitors from the Middle East and Asia who are traditionally less familiar with the town's vaunted history, said Giuliano da Empoli, the mayor's deputy for culture.

The Jersey Shore cast is "out of our target," Mr. da Empoli says. "I certainly didn't invite them to come, and I'm not especially honored by their being here."

When letters began arriving in April and May from the show's producers seeking approval to film the cast in Florence's manicured gardens and museums, city officials were caught off guard. Many had never seen the show.

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A driver yells at cast members in Florence.
Landov

Cristina Acidini, an art historian who serves as superintendent of the city's major museums and palazzos, says she and her staff researched the show's episodes to "evaluate if this type of content and communicative style were in harmony" with proposed shooting locations like the Uffizi Galleries and the Accademia, the respective homes of Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Michelangelo's David.

Mr. Renzi said, however, that he couldn't forbid the cast from visiting Florence, because Italy guarantees "freedom of expression." MTV spokeswoman Ms. Llewellyn says the show is expected to wrap towards the end of June.

Mr. da Empoli, the mayor's cultural attaché, says the Jersey crowd, in addition to major museums, won't be allowed to film inside of Palazzo Vecchio either, though the city might open a lesser-known museum to the cast in exchange for a "compensation" fee.

As soon as the cast rolled into town in mid-May, there were traffic tickets. The cast's vans were hit with a €150 ($215) fine for running a red light, a €66 fine for entering a pedestrian zone and a €40 for parking there, according to police and the mayor.

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Florence police officer

"If they keep this up, we'll have a healthy budget," Mr. Renzi quipped.

Francesca, a 33-year-old police officer who wasn't authorized to give her last name, says she and her partner were assigned to a special detail: staking out the stone palazzo that houses the cast, following their every move in public and creating "a buffer zone."

On Monday, a Fiat van driven by Ms. Polizzi crashed into a police car escorting the van through traffic. Two officers were hospitalized with minor injuries, police said, adding that she was fined €80 for driving at an unsafe distance from the patrol car, and had her driver's license confiscated. "Alcohol was not involved" in the collision, said Ms. Llewellyn, the MTV spokeswoman.

On a recent day back at the cast's palazzo, Lisa Baracchi, 30, was one of a dozen Italian reporters—along with flocks of paparazzi—who have been tracking the cast since their arrival. "What is a Guido?" she asked.

In Italy, "Guido" is simply a man's name. For lack of a translation, Ms. Baracchi noted, the Italian press has resorted to referring to the cast as the "tamarri," which the Italian dictionary defines as a "provincial youth…vulgar."

Not everyone is critical.

Ms. Polizzi, who is actually of Chilean origins, came shuffling down Florence's cobblestone streets on a recent afternoon en route to the cast's palazzo. She wore furry boots with very short jean shorts and a tight bright green shirt plastered with block letters that read: "I'M BAD!"

"I think Americans are excited," said Mattea Cumoletti, a 21-year-old student from Albany, N.Y., who had taken the day off from studies at the University of Bologna, an hour's train-ride from Florence, to go "Jersey Shore hunting."

Inside the Palazzo Vecchio, Mr. Renzi wondered if the cast might succumb to "Stendhal syndrome," a condition named after the pseudonym of 18th-century French writer Henri-Marie Beyle who swooned over the city's splendor.

Looking up at his frescoed ceiling, the mayor said: "I don't know if Snooki—is that her name?—will get swept up in the beauty of Florence, like Stendhal."

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